A few words will explain the secret of Count De Zeng’s unexpected appearance. When Arabella gave her orders to the servant of Major Bender, Alice, unperceived, stood trembling by. She was terrified beyond measure at the peril of Gansevoort, in whom the gentle girl was interested to a degree that she would not own, even to herself and which nothing could have induced her to exhibit to another. She could not give the alarm within, without exposing her predilections, besides which, she supposed the British force to be much nearer than they were, and that nothing but an immediate alarm of the garrison would afford the slightest chance of escape. She ran, therefore, as soon as she was unobserved, hastily to the fort, which was scarcely forty rods distant. A sentinel on duty conducted her immediately to Count De Zeng, to whom, after exacting a promise of secrecy in regard to her agency in the matter, she briefly communicated the state of affairs at her father’s house. The count lost not a moment in acting on her information, with the result which has been described.
We will not follow the prisoner to the place of his confinement, or dwell upon his dismal reflections behind the grated bars of a felon’s cell. He was not a prisoner of war, entitled to the courtesies and respect due to a brave but unfortunate soldier. He was a criminal, guilty of a most base and ignominious act, for which his thorough knowledge of military law told him he must die. He had landed without a flag, entered the enemy’s quarters in disguise, and there sought to bribe an officer to the betrayal of his trust. There was no hope. He felt it. He must die upon the scaffold. In vain, with impotent rage, did he heap curses upon the heads of his imbecile agents. They were at liberty, and he was the victim. If any thing could aggravate his wretchedness, it was the reflection that the day of his arrest was the day of his expected nuptials. No time was lost in his trial. A military court was convened on the ensuing day, before which the prisoner made an ingenious but useless defence. He was convicted, and sentenced to death, and the sentence was immediately forwarded to the commander-in-chief for approval.
The minutes of the trial, which were also sent to General Washington, were fully explanatory of the particulars of his arrest, and of the personal reasons which had influenced Gansevoort in resorting to measures for its procurement, which the latter would otherwise have considered objectionable. To these, the commandant added his express desire, that if the circumstances afforded any ground for a mitigation of punishment, the prisoner might have the full benefit of it.